Gladman on NEOSSat science team

Oct 12, 2007

IPS researcher
and Canada Research Chair
Brett Gladman
is part of the core science team for the
NEOSSat spacecraft,
which will orbit the Earth and use its telescope to find and
track asteroids closer to the Sun than Earth's orbit (including
those which are potentially hazardous because they can intersect
the orbit of our planet).
NEOSSat (the Near Earth Object Surveillance SATellite) is
fully funded by the Canadian Space Agency, and will launch
in 2010 or 2011. Alan Hildebrand of the University of
Calgary is the project scientist for the mission, being
built by the contractor Dynacon of Mississauga, Ontario.
Gladman, a world expert in the orbital dynamics of asteroids,
will be designing a large computer model which will be used
to decide the pointing strategy of the space telescope and to
interpret the discoveries once the telescope begins operations.

Gladman is also a member of the CSA concept study teams for
the PRIME mission to visit Phobos and the OCLE-DOCLE mission
to search for distant comets as they briefly block the light
of a star.